Germany also abstained in the United Nations Security Council's vote authorizing action, joining Russia, China, Brazil and India.
(There was a separate A.U.M.F., in 2002, authorizing action against the government of Saddam Hussein).
It's also being used to authorize action against a host of other groups, though who they are is classified.
PAGE A12 Assisted Suicides Blocked Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized action against doctors who prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients.
The White House said it would send to Congress as early as Thursday the wording of a proposed resolution authorizing action.
POINTS TO LAW CREATING IT Asserts This Authorized Action of New York Bank, Which It Adds It Approved in January.
The proposed scenario ranged from "stall off any conference until "D-Day" through a proposed presidential speech calling for a joint congressional resolution authorizing action against North Vietnam.
Colin Kahl, a former Pentagon official under Mr. Obama, said a "credible threat of military force needs to be left on the table" and suggested the president might seek a conditional measure authorizing action if Syria reneges.
It was thus in 1964, when Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, it was thus in 1991, when it approved military action in the Persian Gulf, and it was thus once again this week, when it authorized action against Iraq.
The logic is straightforward: if it's only the world's democracies that accept the universality of fundamental human rights, then only an organization of such states will authorize action to protect victims of abusive dictators like Robert Mugabe.
It is a problem that has dogged Mr. Kerry since he walked through the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, and suffered the barbs of Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean, who made Mr. Kerry's vote to authorize action an issue.
